


The Wild Hunt

by KeeperofSeeds



Series: Terrifying Tolkien Week 2017 [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Dracula Influence/References, Enemies to Friends, Gen, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pre-Slash, Supernatural Elements, Vampire Hunters, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 10:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13657086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperofSeeds/pseuds/KeeperofSeeds
Summary: Prompt:Vampire Legolas vs. Slayer Gimli





	The Wild Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> Also for the TTT, Oct 27 prompt: wild hunt. 
> 
> This has been sitting in my WIP folder for a while because I kept meaning to reread Dracula and use more of those myth for inspiration.

Mist flows like a stream through the oak grove next to where Gimli has set up camp. An ominous sign, but one that means he is likely on the right path.

He'd spent the daylight hours scouting the surrounding forest and double checking his supplies in the base he'd set up in a small cave. The stream flowing nearby was a particularly good discovery. It cuts off the areas the vampire can approach from, and also serves as a place he could attempt to corner the creature should it attempt to flee.

A wolf howling in the distant reaches of the forest breaks up his thoughts of where the best place to lure the creature is. More howls echo back, and Gimli knows time is drawing short. The sun is setting and vampire will soon be free to roam these lands. He may already be hunting, or have sent his followers out to report back on Gimli and his movements through their land.

Gimli had gotten close to this vampire before, only to have him slip away each time. Often with bright laughter echoing out, mocking Gimli and his efforts.

He would show. Gimli was sure of it. 

* * *

The last time he'd been close to ending the creature, he'd found him bloody and sated after the killing of a man, who had turned out to be the local carpenter, had been found beside town well.

Gimli had tracked down his hiding place, and had managed to surprise the creature as he was laying down to rest, when he'd kicked open the door with a vial of holy water held firm in one hand and his small throwing ax in the other. Instead of leaping forward to fight, relying on arrogance and the surprising strength in his thin arms, the vampire had shrank back into the shadows with a hiss. Gimli had smiled beneath his beard and charged.

A swarm of rats had been his reward that night. Swarming out of the basement of the decrepit house on the edge of a small town where he'd followed every hint of a rumor and every even slightly suspicious death until he'd succeeded in finding the latest lair. The creature had escaped without even a challenge or insult, jumping straight up through a hole in the floor above and scrambling to an exit while Gimli cursed and stomped.

The town's mayor had rewarded him for driving the creature out of the town, but Gimli hadn't accepted the reward or their thanks with grace. Standing there in boots still sticky with blood and bone, angry at being held up with such a trick he'd grumbled and nodded at the expected times and marched out of the town as soon as he was able, determined to be faster next time.

The time before that, he'd almost been caught in the creatures web. This particular vampire was old, so much older than anything Gimli usually hunted, and it had taken time to gather information. This creature was no filthy feral, ripping out throats, barely able to speak, only driven by its lust for blood and the hunt, no. This Legolas was cunning, and ethereal, and all the more dangerous, as he soon learned.

Gimli had felt the tug of suggestion in his mind. It had been unlike anything he had ever experienced before. A lust and sense of possession had spread down his spine and driven his feet forward step by step, through the crowded pub to the seat in the darkest corner. The vampire had toyed with him. He still fumed remembering the way the creature had runs long fingers through his beard down to tug at the high collar of his coat.

This time he would be ready. He wouldn't be let himself be seduced by a pretty face. He would do his job, and eradicate this evil being from the world.

Gimli hurries back to the cave to check his supplies one last time, and to grab his father's ax. He will be ready and waiting for the creature this time.

* * *

 

He doesn't have to wait long. By the time the stars are just beginning to become visible through the canopy above he feels it. A change in the wind.

A haze of fog begins to creep through the trees, but Gimli stands firm, with his back to the study stone beside the cave's edge. His eyes sweep the forest line, but he knows it is unlikely that the creature will make himself know that way. Vampires like this are far too sly and slippery to go in for straight forward combat.

As soon as that thought passes by he hears them. Another wolf howl. This time closer. Another sweep of the clearing reveals first one set of shining eyes, than another and another. They come no closer, but now he can hear them, shifting and growling from within the mist.

He takes a step out from the cave, giving himself more room to swing, and lifting his ax higher, he calls out a challenge. "Well come on ya great mangey beasts! I'll take you all! If your master can't be bothered to come himself I'll leave him a message with your corpses!"

He lets of a wordless growl in challenge but only one of the wolves steps forward, baring long teeth in a snarl Gimli matches. The wolf bends, preparing to leap, and Gimli raises his ax, braces himself to swing, but before the fight can begin a voice calls out, high and sharp in a language he does not recognize.

The wolf's ears go low on it's head but it sullenly retreats back to the line of the mist with its brethren.

Ah. "Finally decided to show up, have ya?" Gimli calls out.

The vampire seems to glide out from behind the wolves, a tall, pale shadow sliding between their grey forms to stand in the clearing.

"I thought your patience would last longer to be honest. You've been chasing me for so long, yet you were about to allow yourself to be drawn into battle on my father's lands? A battle where you are outnumbered and yet you expected not only to survive, but to face me after?" He smiled, wide and amused. "Your confidence is certainly impressive."

"As impressive as my ax. Why not come closer and see both for yourself? Or would you rather stand about posing and retreat at the first sign of a struggle?"

The look slides off the vampires face, leaving behind a face that seems carved of marble, pale and noble in the bright moonlight.

"I am not here to fight," he says. "I come to you with a proposition."

Gimli scoffs. "You come with your cursed creatures, trying to intimidate me." He jerks his chin to the side, gesturing without lowering the ax from his hands. "Send them away if you truly do desire to talk."

Legolas waves a hand and the wolves retreat. The fog does not. It seems to cling to the vampire, to Legolas, as he walks slowly closer, curling around his feet like a playful pet. Like something alive.

He stands alone in the clearing, as if on a stage. Like a an actor monologue aside at an audience, drawing them in with plays at charm and logic. Gimli will not be drawn in again so easily.

 

"The creatures you hunt are not normal for my kind. Did you not wonder why they act so different to beings like myself?"

Gilmi stayed silent, and Legolas goes on.  
"I am not the one feasting on townspeople in the early mornings. Nor are my kin. We have other matters to tend to inside our lands now, and we didn't not truly know of these troubles until recently." He smiles, closed lipped and self deprecating. "I merely thought you and I had a fine chase and dance going, I did not realize the seriousness of the situation until almost too late."

"You mean when I got the jump on you," Gimli says. "A bit too close for comfort was it?"

That stone like face cracks.

"We are not what you think. We are _not_ mindless beasts hunting and killing as far as even our eyes can see.

"The dead body of the carpenter says otherwise." Says Gimli, standing firm.

A pink flush starts to rise on Legolas' cheeks. His voice follows, projecting out to fill the glade in his frustration, "I told you! Those killings are not my people's doing!

  
We are not what you think," he repeats.  
"You hunters, stomping through our realms with your iron and blessed steel. You arrogant-"

Hah! Gimli interrupts, laughing at the irony of a vampire, any vampire calling him arrogant, and the creature stops, seeming to pull himself back to a more formal and polite means of address.

"The ferals currently causing trouble are being sired by someone not of my father's realm. They are not our people." He inclines his head and places on hand over the space where his heart should beat and confesses, "I also hunt this being. My father has given me free reign on how I choose to fufill this task however, and so I come to you with a proposal."

He takes a slow step forward but Gimli's hand tightens on his ax and he pauses.  
"I propose an alliance. A temporary joining to drive out or destroy the recent plague of feral younglings and discover their sire."

Gimli scoffs.  
"Those are a lot of pretty words but your kind is known for twisting speech and telling half truths. Your stories are enough to draw in poor souls with half a heart, but as I've been hunting you for over a year now, I have no reason at all to trust you or believe your claims.

"All I can give you is my word, slayer. I have no token or item to offer up as proof of my claim. We have only discovered the existence of these violent young ones recently. My father cares little for the world, and only when eyes turned to him has he sent me out to find the truth." Legolas took a slow step forward. "Our alliance may be short, even by your standards, for two heads are better than one, and with our knowledge combined I suspect the culprit will not be able to stay hidden.

Gimli eyes him suspiciously still, but lowered his ax to his side. "If your word is all I may have than give it to me. Swear by whatever you like, that you shall not use your powers against me while we are allied. That you shall not be at my throat as soon as my back is turned."

"I shall not harm you as long as our alliance lasts, and as long as you also make no move against me. This I swear, by the grave of my mother."

Gilmi blinked, surprised that the creature would swear on something so seemingly mundane as much as by the fact that not only had the vampire had a mother, but that she was truly dead and buried.

It eased his discomfort some, that that was what the vampire had chosen to swear by.

He sighed, but nodded, accepting the vow.

"Never trust a vampire. My Da taught me that when I was only a wee lad. He's likely rolling in his grave now.

"My father as well," says Legolas. "I doubt this is not the way he expected me to fulfill my task. Working with a slayer," he looks down at Gimli. "I do not think such an alliance has ever happened before. I have never heard of such a thing in all my centuries of living."

Gimli paused and stared up at the creature he'd spent months tracking, at the moonlight reflecting off hair like liquid gold as the vampire realized he stopped and turned to face him. Gimli let out a long breath, and steeled himself.  
  
"I'm not afraid to be the one to blaze a new trail. For this...alliance to work, trust must flow both ways. I give you my word, that I Gimli, son of Gloin, will work side by side with you, until our task is complete. This I swear." With that he took a step forward and held out a callused hand.

Legolas smiled, close lipped and amused. So different from the ferocious snarl of their past meetings, and took two long strides back to clasp his hand.  
  
"You are braver than many of your fellows Gimli, son of Gloin," said Legolas. "I look forward to fighting at your side."

 

**Author's Note:**

> I spent too much time brainstorming this AU and contemplating Elves as Vampires and what that might change about their culture and thinking about Thranduil who could still be injured by a dragon and survive and oh mannn, it would have stung even worse to find Thorin and Co because some of the party was vampire slayers. And yeah, none of this was immediately relevant to the story. But it made me realize I want more LotR vampire AUs.


End file.
